Eyeleting-machine.



J. A. DUNPHY. EYELETING MACHINE. APPLICATION FILED 1mm, 1909.

Patented Dec. 22,191i

JAMES A. DUNPI-IY, 0F GROTON,

MACHINERY COMPANY, OF NEW JERSEY.

Specification of Letters Patent.

MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOB TO 'UNITED SHOE PATERSON, NEW JERSEY, A CORPORATION OF EYELETING-MACHIN E.

Application filed August 2, 1909. Serial No. 510,729.

To all whom itmag concern Be it known that I, JAMES A. DUNPHY, a citizen of the United States, residing at Groton, in the county of Middlesex and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain Improvements in Eyeleting-Maohines, of which the following description, in connection with the accompanying drawings, is a specification, like reference characters on the drawings indicating like parts in the several figures.

This invention relates to machines for setting eyelets, hooks or other fasteners in sheet material, such as leather, cloth, sheet rubber and the like, and relates more particularly to those elements which guide the work while it is being fed, and which contribute to maintain the work in proper position when it is at rest.

The present invention may be embodied to a good advantage in a machine for setting eyelets in the uppers of boots and shoes and for purposes of illustration the invention will be described in this connection although, with suitable modifications, it may be embodied in machines for setting lacing hooks and similar articles.

Heretofore eyeleting machines have been provided with a guide plate and an intermittently acting presser foot adapted to clamp the work on the guide plate between the feeding periods but release the work during the feeding period leaving the latter free to be fed along for the desired distance until, simultaneously with the arrest of the feed, the presser foot again engaged the work. The edge of the work was intended to contact constantly with an edge gage which was arranged to determine the spread of the eyelets, z'. 6., their respective distances from the edge of the lacing slit. By means of the presser foot, just described, the work was held stationary, at the end of each feeding movement, in whatever position it had assumed; but during the feeding movement, the presser foot being inactive, there was no provision for guiding the work and keeping the edge in contact with the edge gage, other than the more or less unreliable grasp of the operator. Under these conditions the work was likely to become moved out of contact with the edge gages, or crowded too firmly against the gages so as to become wrinkled, or otherwise mismanaged so as to give the work an improper position for receiving the next eyelet. Whatever position the work assumed during its feeding movement, in such position it was clamped and held when the feed ceased, and the punching and setting operations ensued whether or not they were. directed to the proper point on the work.

ith a view to remedying the defects above discussed, various attempts have been made to substitute for the intermittently acting presser foot, a continuously acting spring actuated presser foot which should frictionally engage the work during the feeding operation and thus prevent displacement of the work with respect to the setting devices.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a machine for setting eyelets or the like with a novel device for properly guiding and positioning the work at all times, both during the feeding operation and while the work is at rest.

Heretofore in machines in which the work guiding and positioning means has consisted of a guide plate and continuously acting yielding presser foot, ithas been found that the work has had a tendency to slide away from the edge gages, thus permitting an eyelet or eyelets to be set nearer to the edge of the lacing slit than proper. This tendency is particularly noticeable when dealing with a heavy grade of work such as mens shoes.

It is, therefore, a further object of the invention to provide means constantly acting on the work which shall tend to carry the work always toward the edge gages as it is fed to the setting devices, thereby insuring continuous contact with the edge gages and a uniform spread of the eyelets, it being obvious that unless the work is maintained in Patented Dec. 22, 1914.

engagement with said gages, the eyelets will be set nearer the lacing slit than they should be.

In its preferred form my invention comprises a guide plate having a spring pressed roller cooperating therewith, the axis of the roller being inclined to the direction of feed. Such a device has proved remarkably efficient in causing the work, as it is drawn between the guide plate and the roller, to have a strong tendency toward movement in the direction of the edge gage, the body of the roller holding the work flat on the guide plate and preventing wrinkling.

Another feature of the present invention lies in certain details of construction and arrangement whereby hooks or other projecting devices attached to the work are allowed to pass from one side of the work guiding and positioning means to the other as the. work is fed, without interfering with or interrupting the operation of such guiding and positioning means. To this end the roller may be journaled in an axially extending arm provided with passages extending therethrough in the direction of feed.

A roller presser foot and guide plate of the type discussed are particularly advantageous in that: the point of engagement of these members with the work may be conveniently located at the rear of the, setting devices relative to the direction of feed, whereby the work is held in position for setting the last eyelet of a line of eyelets, even though this eyelet is to be set very near to the upper edge of the work.

Still another feature of the invention relates to the mounting of the roller which may be preferably pivoted at a point. above the plane of the guide plate, thus allowing the roller to lie parallel with the guide plate when raised from the guide plate by the insertion of the work.

Heretofore in duplex machines of the character under discussion the separate presser feet have been held in engagement with the two parts of the work by individual springs and on this, account it has sometimes happened that more pressure is exterted on one part of the work than on the other. This has produced an unequal re tarding of the parts which tends to result in an objectionable variation in the space of corresponding eyelets in the respective parts. In accordance with another feature of the present invention it is proposed to obviate these difficulties by providing a singlespring so arranged as to act upon both the presser feet and so insure the application of an equal degree of pressure to both parts of the work.

The embodiment of thisinvention above described may be used to. advantage on a machine arranged to set two eyelets simultaneously on the opposite sides of the lacing slit. Such a machine is shown and described in Letters Patent of the United States, No. 934,066, dated September 141, 1909. The present invention will be described herein as applied to a machine of this type, and such parts of an eyeleting machine as are referred to in the following description and are not shown in the accompanying dawings may be considered, for purposes of illustration, to be identical with corresponding parts disclosed in said patent.

The advantages already referred to, and others incident to the present invention, will be best understood and appreciated from the following description of preferred embodiments thereof, selected for purposes of illustration, together with the accompany-. ing drawings, in which- Figure 1 is a view in perspective showing a preferred form of presser foot in its operative relation to the. working parts of a duplex eyeleting machine; Fig. 2 is an elevation of the presser foot; Fig. 3' is a sectional plan view showing the presser foot, guide plate and anvil plate; Fig. l is a view in. perspective of modified construction.

Figs. 1 and 3 disclose. enough of an eye leting machine of the type described specifically in said Patentv No. 934,066, to exemplify the operation of Work-controlling means embodying this invention. An anvil plate 2 is mounted between the oppositely disposed punches 4 and sets 5, being provided with a shank 6 which is received in a movable feed frame 7, carrying also the punches and sets. The anvil plate is provided with a punch block 8 and an up-set ting die 9 which cooperate respectively with the punches and sets. The feed frame is arranged to be moved forwardly and backwardly as well as laterally for positioning the punches and sets and feedingthe work. When the machine is in operation, the work is first punched on the punch block 8, Fig. 1, the punches are withdrawn and the feed frame 7 carries the upsetting die 9 and sets 5 backwardly into alinement with the pre viously punched holes as diagrammatically indicated in Fig. 3, the eyelets are set, and, after a slight release in the pressure of the sets. the work is fed by a lateral movement of the anvil plate and sets, indicated by the dotted line a. The work is then disengaged by the sets while the anvil plate is in the position shown in Fig. 3 and finally all the elements are returned to their initial position, along the dotted line 2').

The work controlling means comprise a normally stationary guide plate 10 and oppositely disposed rollers 12 mounted with their axes inclined to the line of feed. The guide plate 10 is arranged to be reciprocated endwise on the. bracket 13 for spread.-

ing eyelets at different distances from the edge of the work, and to this end has secured thereto a rack 15 engaging with a toothed sector 16 which may constitute an instrumentality of an automatic spreading mechanism, such as is shown in the patent above mentioned.

In introducing Work to the work-controlling means, the two quarters of a shoe are preferably arranged by the operator so as to be substantially parallel, with their edges registering, and are then inserted between the guide plate 10 and the respective rollers 12, with their edges in engagement with edge gages 18 located at points off-set with respect to the rollers and formed on the block 17 adjustably secured to the guide plate, which edge gages determine the amount of spread for a given position of the guide plate.

Each of the rollers 12 is journaled on a spindle 19 (see Fig. 2) projecting from an arm 20 pivoted at 21 to the side of the block 17 at points lying outside the planes of the surfaces of the guide plate. The spindles 19 are provided with conical heads 22 and the end of the guide-plate 10 is beveled to facilitate the introduction of work to the machine. The arms 20 are provided with rearwardly extending projections 28 having sockets between which is located the compression spring 2- which holds both the rollers in yielding engagement with the guide plate or with the work. The pivot points are located at such a distance from the guide plate, that the rollers, on being separated by the introduction of work of ordinary thickness, will extend substantially parallel with the guide plate, thus engaging the work for nearly their whole length.

In dealing with mens work it is the practice to set blind hooks or hooks having their inner ends covered by a facing strip through the lower end of which the eyelets are subsequently inserted. In order that the lowermost hooks may not interfere with .etting the uppermost eyelets by coming in contact with the rollers 12 or the pivoted arms 20 on which the rollers are mounted, passages are provided in said arms, extending in the line of feed and opening through the side of the arms adjacent to the guide plate. This construction permits the lowermost hooks to enter or pass entirely through them if need be, in order that the uppermost eyelets may be set in the desired proximity to the lowermost hooks.

F or the purpose of manually separating the rollers when work is to be presented to the machine, the forked lever 26 is pivoted to the block 17 by the pivots 27 and engages, by the inclined faces of its arms, the pro jections 23 on the roller-carrying arms 20.

said passages The lever 26 is swung about its pivot for separating the rollers by a perforated lever 28 which is actuated from a treadle through the rod 29.

It will be seen that the rollers 12 constitute means for guiding the work at all. times, both during the feeding periods and punching and eyelet-setting operations. As the work. is fed under the rollers by the sets, in. the manner above described, the rollers are rotated by the work at a rate proportional to the rate of feed and owing to position of the axes of the rollers the work tends to move always toward the edge gages 18. This result is due to the fact that there is less resistance to the movement of the work along a line c-, at right angles to the axis of the roller than there is to the movement of the work in any other direction, such as a, the line along which the feeding force is exerted. The work, therefore, tends to move in the direction of least resistance and is thus kept in constant engagement with the edge gages.

The tendency of a relatively thin piece of work to engage the edge gage is further increased by the fact that the point of most effective contact between the roller and the work is offset with respect to the path of the feeding means, as at some such point as x (see Fig. 3) and, if the work is not in engagement with the edge gage, this point acts as an instantaneous center about which the work swings under the influence of the feeding force which acts along the line (1., the moment arm of the couple tending to swing the work up to the edgegage being the distance from the point to the line a.

It will be noted that the axes about which the arms 20 are arranged to turn extend at such an inclination to the direction of feed that the rollers may most readily separate from the guide plate 10in case a seam or other obstruction in the work is encountered.

A. modification of the device above de scribed is illustrated in Fig. 4; in which the guide plate 50 is shown as provided with the rack 55, and with a pair of rollers 51 mounted on spindles in the guide plate below the surface thereof and extending at an angle to the line of feed. The circumferences of the rollers 51 project slightly above the surface of the guide-plate and are engaged by the work as it is fed. Cotiperating with the rollers just described are the rollers 52, rotatably mounted on inclined spindles formed by the arms 53 which are pivoted at 54- to the blocks 56 carrying the edge gages 58. Compression springs 57 serve to hold the rollers 52 in yielding contact with the rollers 51 or with the work.

Work fed through the device shown in Fig. 4: has imparted to it a strongtendency yieldingly engaging and.

-to move toward lets, lacing hooks the edge gages by both sets of rollers, the action being similar to that discussed in connection with the preferred embodiment of the invention, except that wl'iereas, in the latter, the resistance to. the feeding movement due to friction offered by the guide-plate was approximately the same for any direction of movement of the work, in the present case, the resistance offered by the guide plate due to the rollers 51, is less in a line at right angles to the axis of the rollers, whereby the tendency of the work to move toward the edge gages is intensified.

It will be observed that at all times the work prevented from v-.'rinkling or buc kling against the edge gages by the body of the rollers and the arms :20 which serve to hold the work flat and smooth.

As already stated this invention. is applicable to machines for setting other articles than eyelets and therefore the expression, setting devices, used herein for convenience, is to be construed wherever the context permits as including devices for setting eyeand similar articles.

Having described my invention, what l claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is 1. A. machine of the class described, having, in combination, a setting device, means for intermittently feeding the wor: to the setting position of the setting device, an edge gage located at one side of said setting position, and a roller presser foot located with a portion thereof at the opposite side of said setting position and extending obliquely in a direction opposite to the direction of feeding movement so that the portion of the roller which first acts upon the work is nearer the edge gage than the rest of the roller.

2. A fastener setting machine having, in combination, means for feeding sheet material and setting fasteners therein, and work controlling devices including oppo sitely disposed membe's between which the work is yieldingly engaged, one of said members comprising a roller having sutlicient length to engage and hold the work in a flat condition, said roller being disposed with its axis oblique to the line of feed.

3. A fastener setting machine having, in combination, intermittently acting feeding means arranged for movement in a substan tially straight line path, work controlling means including a roller of sufiicient length to engage and hold the work in a flat condition located at one side of the path of the feeding means, said roller being freely rotatable during the feeding operation, and an edge gage located at the other side of the path of the feeding means.

4:. A fastener setting machine having, in

combination, intermittently acting feeding means arranged formovement in a substantially straight line path, workcontrolling means including a stationary plate and an elongated roller arranged to be freely rotated during the feeding movement of the work, and an edge gage, the feeding means and roller being so. disposed that the work tends to be swung laterally toward the gage about its point of contact with, the roller when not in contact with said gage.

5. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, devices for performing a succession of operations on the work, means for feeding the work, work controlling means comprising a guide-plate and a roller yieldingly pressed toward the guide plate and having its axis arranged obliquely to the direction of feed, thereby offering less resistance to the passage of the work in a drection at right angles to the axis of the roller than in any other direction, and an edge gage located out of line with the. axis of said roller.

6. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, setting devices, an edge gage, means for yieldingly engaging the work at a point off set with respect. to the edge gage, and cooperating work feeding means acting along a line intermediate the gage and work-engaging means, and tending to move the work into engagement with said gage.

7. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, setting devices, an edge gage, a guide plate, and a roller for yieldingly engaging the work atv a point off set with respect to the edge gage, together with cooperating work feeding means acting along a line intermediate the gage and roller,

nd tending to swing the work into engagement with said gage.

8. A machine of the class described, havin in combination, setting devices, work feeding means, and work controlling means comprising a guide plate, a pivoted arm extending obliquely to the line of feed, and a roller carried by said pivoted arm, together with means for separating said guide plate and roller to permit the introduction of work.

9. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, setting devices, work feeding means, and work controlling means comprising aguide plate, arms pivoted on opposite sides of said guide plate, rollers carried by said pivoted arm and having arranged obliquely to the line of feed. together with means for simultaneously moving said rollers in opposite directions.

10. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, setting devices, work feeding means, and work controlling means comprising a guide plate, arms pivoted on extending 1,121,990 5 opposite sides of said guide plate, work enrearwardly of the setting devices relative gaging members mounted 1n said arms and to the direction of feed, and a roller supextending obliquely to the line of feed, and ported from a point in advance of said setmeans acting to hold both work engaging ting position and cooperating with said members yieldingly toward the guide plate.

11. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, devices for performing a succession of operations on the work, a guide plate, roller carrying arms pivoted on opposite sides of said guide plate and extending obliquely to the line of feed, and rollers journaled thereon, said roller-carrying arms being provided with passages extending approximately in the line of feed.

12. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, devices for performing a succession of operations on the work, work controlling means comprising a guide plate, a roller-carrying arm extending obliquely to the line of feed, and having formed therein a passage for the reception of projections on the work, and a roller journaled in said arm.

13. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, devices for performing a succession of operations on the work, a guide plate, a block forming edge gages, roller-carrying arms pivoted to said block and extending obliquely with respect to the line of feed, projections formed on said roller-carrying arms, a spring mounted between said projections and adapted to yieldingly force said arms together, and rollers journaled in said arms.

14:. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, devices for performing a succession of operations on the work, work feeding means, a guide plate, roller-carrying arms mounted at points without the planes of the surfaces of the guide plate and at an inclination to said surfaces and obliquely to the line of feed, and work engaging rollers journaled in. said arms.

15. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, devices for performing a succession of operations on the work, a guide plate, roller-carrying arms having projections, rollers journaled in said arms, a forked lever cooperating with said projections, and means for moving said lever to separate said rollers.

16. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, devices for performing a succession of operations on the work, work feeding means, a guide plate extending both forwardly and rearwardly of the setting devices relative to the direction of feed, and a roller cooperating with said guide plate and engaging the work at a point in the rear of the setting devices.

17. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, devices for performing a succession of operations on the work, work feeding means, a guide plate extending guide plate to engage the work at a point in the rear of the setting device.

18. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, devices for performing a succession of operations on the work, work feeding means, a guide plate, and a presser foot comprising a roller for engaging the work, the axis of said roller being normally inclined with respect to the surface of said guide plate and angularly movable rela tively thereto.

19. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, devices for setting a line of fasteners in pliable Work, work feeding means, an edge gage, and a presser foot comprising a roller for engaging the work, said roller being terminated by a non-rotatable head with a reduced end remote from the edge gage and extending atan in clination to the direction of the feed.

20. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, devices for setting a line of fasteners in pliable work, work feeding means, a guide plate, an edge gage, a rigid arm mounted for turning movement about an axis extending obliquely to the line of feed, and a roller journaled on said arm for engaging and guiding the work.

21. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, devices for setting a line of fasteners in pliable work, work feeding means, a guide plate, an edge gage, a rigid arm mounted for pivotal movement toward and from said plate about an axis extending obliquely to the line of feed, and a roller journaled on said arm and having its axis extending substantially at right angles to the axis of said rigid arm.

22. A machine of the class described, having, in combination, devices for setting a line of fasteners in pliable work, work feeding means, a guide plate, an edge gage, a rigid arm mounted for pivotal movement toward and from the under side of said plate about an axis extending obliquely to the line of feed, a roller journaled on said arm, and means acting on said arm to press the roller upwardly to hold the work in en gagement with the under side of said guide plate.

23. A duplex machine for setting fasteners having, in combination, a guide plate, two yieldingly mounted presser feet, one disposed on each side of the guide plate, and a single spring for holding both presser feet toward the guide plate.

24. A duplex machine for setting fasteners having, in combination, means for setting fasteners in two pieces of sheet material, oppositely disposed presser feet for engaging the respective pieces, and a single spring {or holding both presser feet against the surfaces of the pieces.

25. A duplex machine for setting fasteners having in combination, Work feeding means, a guide plate across the opposite faces of which separate pieces of Work are fed, two pi'essei' ieet, one arranged to swing toward or from each face of the guide plate 10 and each having a rearWai-dly projecting portion, and a compression spring inter posed between said portions.

in testlmony whereof I have signed my name to this speclficatlon 1n the presence oi two subscribing Witnesses.

JAMES A. DUNPHY.

Witnesses HERBERT W. KENWAY, ARTHUR L. RUSSELL.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of llatents,

Washington, 13. G. 

